Elysium
by Portia
Summary: This is my first ever fic...A woman in voluntary exhile contemplates the life she's been living and recalls the life she had to leave. Please review!


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Author's Note: This is my first attempt at writing, but I've been reading all sorts of fanfic for several years and have recently become obsessed with Harry Potter fic. I would appreciate any feedback people have to offer so I can decide if people would be interested in reading more and where they think I should go with this. Also, while it may not be so apparent in this part, I've taken a few liberties with the age/love lives of some of the peripheral characters in the novels that play a part in the story. (Sorry, dramatic license and all that.)

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Disclaimer: I guess it's pretty obvious that I don't actually own any of the characters, names, places, etc. They all belong to JK Rowling.

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Elysium 

By Portia

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***Prologue***

There was nothing outstanding about the young woman who was walking down the cobbled sidewalk. Her plain brown hair was pulled back into a braid, she was wearing unremarkable clothes and she was doing nothing to otherwise draw attention to herself. No one walking by her would even bother to give her a second glance. Most of the townspeople referred to her as the "widow Weston;" her husband had died right before she moved to town over two years ago. They didn't really know that much more about her. She lived in a big, old house on the outskirts of town that was surrounded by an apple orchard and many gardens. She spent most of her time there with her children and only ventured off the property to do her shopping. There was an air of sadness around her but she was always polite and nice and kept to herself so no one in town really paid her much attention. 

_No one will ever suspect the truth…_

If they had been more observant perhaps they would have wondered how such a young woman had so many children, the oldest one being nearly twelve years old. Or perhaps they would have been curious to know how she seemed to always have an abundance of money to buy what she needed, yet did not have a job. Or why in the two years she had lived in town no one had ever come to visit her. But that's the way things were in Nowheresville, USA, everyone minded their own business. That's why she had gone there in the first place. 

She paused for a moment at the stone and iron gate that marked the beginning of her dirt driveway. It seemed almost out of place guarding the old farmhouse. The iron was beautifully wrought into scrolling patterns of leaves and crowning the top of the gate was the cast iron head of a lion. The stones were mismatched boulders that had been expertly fit together in a manner that one seldom saw in newer stonework. The gate was the only thing about the house she loved. It reminded her of another time, another place, one that seemed so far away. 

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GRYFFINDOR!

She hadn't been in that place long when she had been forced to leave. Yet in her mind it was home. It was comfortable and familiar and represented everything she had grown to love. She sighed as she continued up the driveway, knowing that she would probably never return to that place. It had been too long; it was surely destroyed by now. But she had no way of knowing what had happened and had to content herself with the thought that she would just have to wait here until word arrived.

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Don't worry, we'll come to find you. Soon.

Every day she became more certain that no word would ever come and that the world was that much closer to ending. Every day was a little harder to face than the day before.

"I wish I could just give up," she thought to herself.

_You're a survivor. You don't know how to surrender._

As she let herself into her house seven smiling faces greeted her and suddenly she knew why she had to keep going. The children were sitting on the floor with a stack of paper and crayons.

"Why don't you color a bit longer while I fix dinner." 

The children nodded their approval and went on with their drawings ignoring her completely. She didn't leave to make dinner immediately but choose instead to quietly observe the scene. 

Arthur, the oldest at twelve, was sitting at the dining room table and helping Jack, the six-year-old, with his drawing. He was patiently showing him the best way to draw a house. At the other end of the table Max, who was ten, was helping Nick, five, in much the same way. Arthur and Max were wonderful. Without their maturity and responsibility she would never have been able to care for all seven children. 

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It will be harder and more important than anything else we could ask you to do.

On the floor next to the table were the three younger children. Sam, who had just turned three, was showing off a new skill by diligently writing his name on a piece of paper over and over again. His brown curls marked him as the only non-redhead of the group. Lily, at two, was the youngest and the only girl. She was happily scribbling in any color she could get her hands on. 

As she looked at the last child carefully composing a picture of what looked to be the orchard she couldn't help but feel a tiny surge of love and pride above what she felt for the others. She always felt guilty about the favoritism, but she couldn't help it. There was just something about knowing that Harry was HER son that made her love him more than anything else in the world. He was a bright, plucky child who always managed to say just what she needed to hear. His kindness and generosity towards the other children showed that he possessed wisdom beyond his three and a half years. He was the only of the seven who had seen his mother in the past two years and he understood what that meant for the others. He recognized the need to share his mother with the other children who were not so lucky. Never once in their time here had he thrown a tantrum when his mother was paying more attention to another child than she was to him. 

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Please, it will make it easier if I know my son has a mother.

She walked into the kitchen and began to make dinner in a series of actions that had become automatic. As she started making a salad she let her thoughts wonder, as they always did, to the group of children in the other room. Every one of them was very smart. She had been giving all the children lessons in reading, writing and math using some old textbooks that she had found in a bookstore and was amazed at how quickly they learned. But there were some things that she would never be able to teach them. 

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If we lose it won't matter…

If things had been different Arthur and Max would have been preparing to go off to school to learn to use all of their talents. And Arthur and Max were well aware of that. The knowledge that they understood pained her greatly. Harry, Sam and Lily had been babies when they had left their other life and knew nothing of the world outside of the house and the grounds where they now lived. They knew nothing of the parents who could not be with them. Jack and Nick would sometimes remember something unexpected about what it had been like before. Like the funny fireworks their dads used to put on shows with or the way their grandfather used to secretly give them candy before dinner. But they never remembered anything about the day to day activities of life. The activities that she had come to love and cherish. 

It was Arthur and Max who could really remember what life had been like before they had come to this place. They were the only ones who understood that there was something more than parents missing from their lives. Something that she would never be able to give them. This was the fact of life that she cursed every morning when she rose and every night before she went to sleep. She was the caretaker of seven children who may very well be the most important children in the world. And there was absolutely nothing she could do about it but sit and wait and hope. 

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Don't worry, we will find you.


End file.
